Connecticut's Supreme Court of Errors was obviously bothered by the case it was considering. The crime, said Judge John M. Comley speaking for a unanimous bench, was "particularly revolting and atrocious." Yet the conviction of Handyman Harlis Miller, serving a life sentence for the murder of Westport Matron Isabel Sillan, was reversed because it had been obtained with the aid of inadmissible evidence.
It was just the sort of decision to feed the growing public outcry against courts coddling criminals, and the New York Daily News was quick to complain about "judicial concern for accused criminals outweighing judicial concern for...